Researchers from the University of Washington developed custom-made headphones that can isolate a specific voice from a crowd despite enabling active noise cancelation.
The noise cancelation headphones use AI to detect the speaker's voice that will be isolated from the background noise.
AI-Powered Headphones Capable of Selecting Specific Voice
The researchers claimed that they were able to select specific voices from a crowd and isolate the voice despite using active noise cancelation technology. The recently published paper showed that headphone wearers can simply gaze at the targeted speaker's face and wait for the AI to analyze the sound signals.
The unique speech traits of the speaker will be processed using AI, allowing it to isolate the voice from one source while noise canceling is still active for the background noise.
"With our devices, you can now hear a single speaker clearly even if you are in a noisy environment with lots of other people talking," said Shyam Gollakota, University of Washington Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering professor and senior author.
AI-Powered Headphones to Help With Partial Hearing Loss
While the research's main idea is to make conversations more focused within noisy areas, the researchers believe that the device could soon help people with partial hearing loss.
The prototype was built using commercial headphones that were modified using microphones and an onboard AI neural network. The entire enrollment process of the speaker's voice took around three to five seconds and is expected to improve throughout the conversation.
The researchers also explained that once a voice is enrolled, the wearer can look in any direction or walk around while still hearing the target speaker. Still, the process requires more improvement as the team targets to help more people with the technology.
The paper is currently available in the Association for Computer Machinery.
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